


We drove through our Ghosts to get here

by agirlnamedchuck



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, I'm horrible at tagging things, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Minor Character Death, Museums, Natasha is bad at being friends with people but she tries anyway, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Steve is an insomniac, natasha romanov and steve rogers friendship, this story drove me crazy for two weeks straight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-28 02:57:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agirlnamedchuck/pseuds/agirlnamedchuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Natasha and Steve are both bad at dealing with their pasts and this whole emotions deal. Also their friendship may not be the most 'healthy' thing but they're coping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We drove through our Ghosts to get here

I. 

Natasha gets in from her debriefing at four in the morning. She has three cracked ribs and two more bruised, her lip is split and she has a cut on her shoulder that goes down to her back and tugs at it painfully when she walks. As far as injuries go it’s not bad, and she’s definitely had worse. 

The first thing she does is go to the kitchen and grabs the first thing she sees that looks remotely appetizing. It’s some kind of leftover lasagna and she knows without a doubt that Bruce made it. 

He and Steve are the only ones that can adequately cook but Bruce prefers to use more vegetarian ingredients while Steve likes to make everything by scratch. Tony prefers fast-food or something made by Jarvis, he sees no real need to cook himself. Thor despite showing aptitude in making breakfast foods and surprisingly muffins, cannot cook anything else. The one time they allowed him to they ended up eating Chinese take out while waiting for the firefighters to finish clearing the kitchen. On the plus side they ended up with new take out place. 

No one bothers to ask Natasha to cook. No one has the nerve. 

Clint as far as she is aware of has never cooked for anyone in the four months that they’ve both been living in the tower. 

Regardless of who has made it the lasagna is the first thing she’s eaten in two and a half weeks that isn’t a protein bar and to put it simply she devours it. She knows most people in her situation would be sleeping but she is always a pragmatist and a set of broken ribs and being given a dose of medicine capable of knocking out Thor isn’t going to stop that. 

Natasha lives by a hierarchy of needs and because her wounds are already taken care of she can eat and relax (relax as much as she can while injured and uncertain about the status of the rest of the team. So minimal at best and not at all at worst.) Sleep is last. Unimportant and ready to be thrown aside. She’s spent more days then this on her feet. 

She finishes the lasagna and checks on her team, pretending willfully that she isn’t moving slower than normal. 

In the morning the team will be eating breakfast and she’ll slip in quiet and unnoticed, when they do notice her she’ll be fine. There will be no limp and she will not occasionally breathe strangely, as if all the bones in her chest are baring down on her, she will be the same old Natasha, save for a split lip. 

This is who she is. She cannot show weakness, she cannot allow it even to herself. Once maybe but no longer. 

She checks their rooms carefully and quietly, staying only long enough to make sure they’re all right before heading to the next one. She’d question the possible security breach but she also has to factor in her skills (no one is quite as good as her) and Jarvis. Jarvis who has more security measures than shield, and Jarvis who allows her to do this even if she doesn’t fully trust him. 

Only one room is empty and she scans it for a moment, noticing the neatly made bed, before heading towards the elevator. Jarvis takes her to the roof without a word and she doesn’t wonder when she’s developed patterns, routines. She’s had to deal with accepting that a long time ago. 

The sky outside is a pale pink now, she’s spent more time eating and getting adjusted than she thought. Steve sits against the wall, staring out into the city, a sketchbook placed delicately on his lap. 

She could leave now. He has no injuries obvious or otherwise and she doubted he’d be drawing if he did. Clearly whatever is preventing him from sleeping is something internal. Something that is not her problem as the ache in her ribs reminds her. 

They aren’t close. Cordial, because she doubts Steve hates anyone on principle though she’s sure that there is a limit to his kindness, there is always a line to be crossed after all. 

But they aren’t friends. Friendly perhaps if nothing else. She checked on his wellbeing and owes him nothing, there are no debts between them. 

Natasha considers it for another minute and then strides over as best as she can, limp disappearing in an instant. Sometimes she wonders when she became this sort of person, to sit on a roof at four in the morning and counsel super soldiers on problems that don’t involve her. 

She blames Coulson. Or she would, if he wasn’t dead. You can’t blame dead men for flaws they’ve instilled. She knows. She’s tried before. 

“What’s the problem Cap?” she says and doesn’t delight in the quick look of surprise he gives her, not noticing her arrival. She’s above such things. 

His shoulders that tensed up at her voice relaxes slightly, though not completely. She doubts she’s ever seen him fully relaxed. But he smiles at her and says something she wasn’t expecting at all. “There use to be a school right there.” 

She blinks, surprised and then covers it quickly. “A school.” she repeats flatly and he nods still smiling, pointing at a looming building. She thinks it’s some kind of advertising firm. 

“You’re up this late because of a building?” It’s possible that lack of sanity is a requirement for being an avenger. She’s sure she saw a sub-notice about it somewhere. There’s probably even a form. 

He laughs and then hands over his sketch book. It’s a perfect copy of the sky above him and as she stares at it she notices details she hadn’t before. The swirls of blue and purple in the sky, the start of light reflected off of nearby buildings, a nest of birds close by. These are artist details and Natasha has never cared much for art. 

“I keep getting stuck because of the building.” he explains quietly staring out at the city. “I’m used to open space and my hands just refuse to accept that.” It isn’t an art problem then however he presents it. It’s once again because of his situation. She shouldn’t have stayed. She has no words for this. She doubts there are any. 

She looks at him and he looks back. She should wonder why he’s telling her this, she’s shown no empathy for his situation. She should wonder but she doesn’t. 

“I hope you solve your problem.” she says at last and hands the sketchbook back. She stands, shoulder protesting and heads back towards the door. All of her previous adrenaline has faded by now and as much as she wanted a shower before she slept she knows that’s not going to happen. 

“I hope your ribs feel better tomorrow.” Steve calls and she almost stops and then doesn’t, she glances back at him but he’s already staring back at the city, fingers tapping against the sketchbook and staining his hands. She pretends she doesn’t recognize that look. 

The room closest to Natasha belongs to Clint. They didn’t choose it. Tony had already had their rooms picked out, perfected, long before they finally agreed to move in. 

She doesn’t stop by it again and instead crawls into her own bed, shedding off various layers of clothing as she goes. She closes her eyes and breathes as evenly as she can, pretending that she’s asleep. Lying to herself that she isn’t in the wrong room, in the wrong home. That all of this isn’t wrong. 

She can’t show weakness after all and vulnerability is the worst kind of weakness. Clint is a weakness. Her last weakness died. Bled to death and stained her ledger a darker red, a color of remorse. Her ledger just does not handle this stain, no it cracks, fragile and delicate under a weight of guilt like no other she’s known.

The next incident that garners the need for the avengers is a month later and the pain in her ribs have all but faded to a dull ache. Tony and Bruce are both off at some science conference on the west coast and Thor is still in Asgard on his hopeless quest to talk to Loki. 

The threat is considered small enough that only she, Clint, and Steve are called in. It’s strange, not fighting as a full team but it’s not the first time they’ve done it and she and Clint quickly listen to Cap’s orders. 

It’s supposed to be a small threat and for most of the fight it is. The villain’s weapon of choice are a bunch of robots, which despite packing a punch that makes even Cap wince, are only an issue because of how long it takes to disable them. 

It’s fine, everything is fine until there’s about ten or so of the robots left and the villain is getting notably nervous and it shows on his face. He reaches down to his belt and she turns to tell Cap, (possible weapon? Control for robots? Answer unknown but dangerous) and that’s when it happens. 

The ground shakes first, a shudder crawling up the concrete and then she hears the boom. It knocks her and Cap down and she smacks her against the ground hard and she’s dazed for a second--half a second. By the time she struggles to her feet three more booms have already gone off and she realizes what they are. 

In that half second of realization she’s already darted forward and thrown herself and Cap as far out of the way as she can. It’s not enough. 

Explosives.

As the buildings nearest to them crumble and before she knows it they’re buried under miles and miles of rubble. She opens her mouth to breath, unsure of how much air she’ll have and inhales dust instead. It rattles around in her lungs and for moments, minutes she claws for air and finds it somewhere finally. 

“Black Widow?” Cap calls and she hadn’t realized he was that close by. So she’s not buried alone then. At this point she’s not yet sure if that’s a good thing or not. Risk or not.

She clear her throat, fast and efficiently. “Cap.” she says and then says it louder. 

“Status.” He says, voice sounding strange to her ears and she wonders if the blasts effected her hearing and then dismisses the thought. 

“I’m fine.” pause, “But I have a slab of cement stuck over my right leg.” 

Natasha is a pragmatist, she is logical to a degree that unnerves more than one trained and seasoned shield agent. She’s been accused of having no emotions what so ever and the jury is still out on that. Their comms are smashed and even if they weren’t reception wouldn’t reach this far down. 

At best they’ll be found before their supply of air runs out, if it happens quick enough she’ll be rushed to medical and be treated there. At worst: at worst has three options a) whatever remaining structure that is currently keeping them from being crushed will collapse b) they run out of air. C) she loses her leg. 

“That’s not good.” Cap says and she kind of wants to laugh because he might just be the worse support in this situation. You can’t laugh at Cap though. He’s like a puppy. Tony and Clint have had lengthy discussions (re: arguments) about it. 

Instead she focuses on shield protocol and the fact that Clint is still out there. As far as she’s aware of, he didn’t get caught in the blast. “Status?”

“Stable.” he says, voice strange again and in the darkness her eyes narrow and she feels around her belt for her flashlight. She finds it finally and when she turns it on she aims for where she thinks Steve is. 

Natasha curses not in Russian but in Polish, it sounds harsher that way. Steve stares at her with a blank expression, hands wrapped tight around a support beam. A beam that if she had to guess is all that’s keeping them from being flattened. 

“Still stable?” she says when she is calm, when she has allowed herself that moment to freak out. (not panic. Because the Black Widow does not panic)

She wonders if even Captain America could handle having that many pounds of building collapsed on him. 

Some of the impassiveness on his face fades away and he doesn’t look nervous--not yet. “For now.” he admits and she sighs. 

It takes fifteen minutes of silence and occasional three minute status checks (still stable? Yes, still has a piece of concrete stuck on her leg? Yes.) before Natasha realizes she is bored. She’s stuck underground, just scraping by dying and she is bored. This is what years of being Clint’s partner has done to her. This is what the avengers has done to her. Life or death situations no longer directly effect her. 

She covers her increasingly growing horror with a cough. “Widow?” Cap says immediately, of course he does, and she calls back “Stable.” 

Natasha closes her eyes and does not consider what happens to a shield agent with one leg (lie) 

“Have you ever regretted something?” Cap--no Steve, says and she winces when she hears the beginning of exhaustion start to curl around his voice, a hazy quality to it. She could be wrong, she might just be starting to pass out. 

“We are not having a death beds conversation.” Natasha says flatly. This has happened to her at least five times already and she is not doing it with Cap. It’s different this time. She knows him. When they survive this it’ll be awkward--for him and she cannot deal with this and her leg at the same time. 

He’s silent after that and she gets the feeling that she’s not just kicked the metaphorical puppy but decapitated it. Natasha sighs and tries to remind herself that not everyone is as sure in their survival odds as she is. When did she become an optimist? 

“Yes.” she says shortly, and that is all she will say because while she has few regrets the weight of them could crush her if she let it, and prays (no not prays, but something close to it) that whatever he regrets wont be too embarrassing for him in the morning. Not to spare his feelings because she doesn’t care about anyone’s feelings (lie) but because it’ll effect the team if he can’t even look her in the eye. 

“What was her name?” In another life, this might be her way of being gentle about it. She’s admittedly blunt and this is all she can do to curb it. It’s always a pretty girl, someone they left behind or got in a fight with. Their true loves they say with hazy eyes and she listens to the same stories with different details. It’s always the same. (not always, once it was a man in a suit with a bland smile on his face, once the man with hazy eyes was an archer bleeding out in Budapest, once it might have been her)

“His name was Bucky.” If it came up she’d never admit to how shocked her face must have looked (her eyes had widened) because then it passed quickly by his next words and she reminds herself not to assume things because that is where you make mistakes of the fatal kind. “He was my best friend and I let him die.”

Natasha Romanov does not apologize, she does not show empathy or feelings. She doesn’t having the training for it. but sometimes she understands, sometimes people say her own feelings back at her.

“I’m sorry.” (truth) 

“I am too.” Steve says, weary and tired and she can feel the weight of those seventy-five years in his voice. She closes her eyes again and keeps them shut as tight as she can. 

She focuses on her breathing again (in, out, in, out) but it’s harder by the hitch in her throat and she realizes that she’s the one who’s tired, very tired. How can sitting still be so tiring?

“Black Widow?” It’s Cap this time, not Steve and she finally understands. Of course it wasn’t a dying conversation: Steve has too much faith and idealism for that. He was just trying to keep her conscious by talking to her. “Natasha?”

Sometimes one of her mistakes is going to get her killed she thinks and then passes out. 

Consciousness fades in and out in bits and pieces and she struggles to make sense of them but slips back under before she can. The one bit she can accurately remember is hearing Clint, she doesn’t hear the words because of the sudden pain in her leg (pain is good, pain means she gets to keep it) but she hears the tone and it’s enough. 

It’s pure worry. If she was a different kind of girl Natasha would try to comfort him even with her leg bleeding out or when she was conscious he’d be the first person she’d ask for, something maudlin like that. She’s not though, she’s never going to be that girl. 

Natasha wakes up to the familiar place of a hospital room. She knows she’s in a hospital bed without even opening her eyes. By now she’s had the various sights and smells memorized for years (re: life.) 

“You that worried?” she mutters, voice slightly groggy . Steve who’s been sitting in the closest most uncomfortable chair (Natasha and Clint have the comfort levels of all the medical chairs rated and that one gains a two and a half) next to her bed for probably as long as she’s been admitted, starts. 

“Natasha.” He says and she can hear the relief in his voice. Steve’s too expressive to be a good spy, with his muscles and skills he could be an intimidating one but never good. 

She pulls herself up and opens her eyes. Unsurprisingly Cap is the only one pulling a bedside vigil and she represses the urge to laugh at him. “Status?” she says instead and the smile on his face widens. 

“Stable.” Steve says and then, “They say you’ll be fine to go home by morning.”

Natasha frowns (she’d wanted to go home earlier) and then accepts it. The shield medical staff can be described as tenacious at best and pit bulls holding onto a bone at worst. 

She stares pointedly at his sketchbook and his expression turns sheepish, almost shy and immediately she demands to see it. 

The red of her hair, the tilt of her sleeping face. The details are all very accurate but somehow they paint a different picture. When Steve Rogers draws her sleeping, draws her vulnerable she looks like a different person. 

“Did you have lessons?” she muses out loud and even though she knows he didn’t always look like this, that’s how she pictures him. A too large man fumbling around in an art studio with a golly shucks attitude. 

“For a few months and then I had to drop out.” she raises an eyebrow at him as if to say go on. “The war had just started and everything was more expensive, more valuable than it had been the day before. So I had to stop or Bucky and I would have lost our apartment.”

Bucky? The name sounded familiar and she frowns again and then remembers Steve’s ‘confession.’ The best friend he let die. She had wondered if it was real at the time. She shouldn’t have. She can’t picture Steve lying to anyone about his past. Dismissing, avoiding things perhaps but not lying. 

Natasha doesn’t know how to continue the conversation, doesn’t know the protocol for this. The air between them becomes awkward and Steve takes his sketchbook back without another word. 

“Clint was here.” Steve says and she knows he thinks it’s safe ground between them when really it’s the worst possible one he could of picked. She would have taken anything above this, even ‘how about those Yankees?’ 

“Was he?” she says quietly. Clint never stays in medical for long, not even when she’s the one in it. She understands, she’s the same way. There had only been one person they would both willingly stay for. 

“He looked worried, it was kind of surprising actually.”

She tenses, spine snapping still. Rookie mistake caused by an instinctive reaction. Steve isn’t an enemy and neither is the topic of Clint. She shouldn’t be so averse to either. “Why is that surprising?”

Steve mouth twists wryly as if to say you know why and she does know why but she hadn’t thought it was obvious. She’d foolishly underestimated Steve’s intelligence or at the very least his perception. 

It wouldn’t happen again. 

“What do you want me to say?” (What lie does he want to hear straight from the spider’s web?) Steve doesn’t deserve to know anything, she owes him nothing (lie). He saved her life after all (but she saved his first, he was at the center of the blast and all the super strength in the world isn‘t going to stop his skeleton from breaking with half a ton of building on top), kept them from being crushed. He even shared his past with her, something precious and foolish. So maybe she does owe him something but she won’t give him anything more then she has to. 

He’s not a foolish man and he shifts away from her settling back into his chair and staring down at his sketchbook. “Whatever you want to say.” 

“Let’s make a trade.” she suggests and he agrees just like that---good ol’ Cap always bearing his soul. It shouldn’t be this easy to trade old scars but it is. 

So she tells him about the beginning even though he asked for the ending. She tells him about a mission and a call that had to be made but wasn’t. She talks of blood and bullets and the warmth of India. She talks of heroes but knows she’s not one. She talks and talks and it doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t matter because they both know how this story ends. 

He tells the ending instead, the beginning too precious too painful to be stained by her ears (she’d wouldn’t take offense, it’s true and she doubts anyone will hear the beginning.) He talks of his best friend leaving, of wondering if he’ll be the one who his body gets shipped back to. He talks of a miracle (of a curse maybe) and he talks about taking apart an entire enemy camp to save one man. He talks of bullets and trains and the cold of Switzerland. He talks of heroes but says he’s not one. He talks and talks and it doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t matter because they both know how this story ends. 

It ends with them sitting in a hospital room discussing losses they cant fix, losses that still poke and prod at them with bloody accusing fingers, and throats burned raw from words they haven’t spoken aloud in years. It means nothing in the end. 

Natasha doesn’t bother to wonder why if it means nothing that she still listened. Because the Black Widow doesn’t waste her time wondering pointless questions. 

Captain America doesn’t either. 

They both go home in the morning even though Cap was officially cleared fourteen hours ago. Natasha is not grateful, she’s not. The rest of the team is already there, waiting for them. “We can’t leave you three alone for even a day.” Tony says dryly and Cap rolls his eyes and heads off to his room. 

Natasha feels eyes follow her (of course she does) as she heads to her own and she stops and waits. She doesn’t have to wait long. 

“Hey Tasha.” Clint says quietly and she realizes that this is the first time they’ve spoken since moving in the tower. Not jokes, not mutual complaining about the team or whatever mission they’re on, not debating the clichés in spy movies but real talking. 

It doesn’t make her nervous but she wonders if it makes him. “Barton.” she greets and shifts so that most of the weight is on her uninjured foot. Clint’s eyes follow it and linger for too long on the cast around it. 

“You alright?” 

She shrugs. “I’ll heal.” it’s a standard answer, something she’d say to avoid talking about it. She knows he hates it. She doesn’t mention she knows he snuck in, why would she? When it’s something they’ve always done, it’s no different now. 

It’s not. (lie)

“You look like shit.” he says bluntly, looking her over and she laughs, startled by it. 

“At least I have the excuse of a hospital.” she teases and then his smile fades and oh it’s serious now. 

“Let’s hear it then.” Natasha crosses her arms and leans against, the wall easing more tension off of her leg.

It’s the “dangerous risks” speech. It’s the self-sacrificing speech. It’s the value your life more speech. It’s the be careful because even if you’re an agent of shield you can still be more careful despite the casualty rate of what they do. 

They’ve had this speech hundreds, thousands of times before. It’s almost always Clint, though occasionally it’d been her, and memorably Coulson had received it three times. 

It’s, to put it in as simple terms as possible, complete and utter bullshit and they all disregard it five seconds after it’s been lectured at them. 

“What’s with you lately?” he says instead and throws her off for a minute (not even, seconds at best) “For months you’ve been pulling riskier shit. It’s not just the thing with Cap--you really think I’d be angry that you rescued a teammate?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.” she says bitingly and it’s a low blow, the kind you can only say after years of knowing each other. Millions of places and millions of missions run through her head (Budapest, Milan, Beijing, Paris.)

I made a different call she thinks and then pushes it far away. 

Clint doesn’t take the bait, she’s not even sure why she wanted him to, “You’ve been reckless and frankly you’ve been off your game, I’m surprised you haven’t been hurt before this.” 

It’s his own low blow even if he doesn’t mean it that way. She’s supposed to be the best and the best aren’t supposed to get hurt. Getting hurt means you weren’t fast enough, it means you weren’t quiet enough and at the heart of it, it means you weren’t good enough. 

She does not think of that first night on the roof with Steve, she doesn’t think of her broken ribs at all.

If he wants to talk about off his game then fine they’ll talk about it. “You missed on the last mission.” she says easily, recalling the mission with complete clarity. “No one else saw it but you were shocked, even though you shouldn’t have been, it’s not the first time you’ve missed since moving into the tower.”

He stares at her and once she could have read that face, once it might have been an open book to her but now it’s nothing. She sees nothing. 

“You’ve been stumbling around like a zombie and you haven’t attended your last four therapy sessions.”

“I’m not going to respond to sucker punches from you.”

“You know why you’ve been missing. I know why you’ve been missing.”

“Tasha--” and there it is. There’s that anger she wanted so bad. She pretends she doesn’t hear pain. For both their sakes. 

She knows the things to say to destroy him, she knows the words to make him collapse to his knees and he knows the same about her. The Black Widow gets ready to strike, fangs out and deadly as always--

But there’s a wedge between them. It’s heavy and ugly and unmovable no matter what they do. It’s cutting at their connections and she knows that if she says it then another one will snap and make them all the weaker for it. 

She’s so tired of feeling weak. 

Besides she’s not that person anymore. 

\--“I’m tired.” she says instead, and leaves him standing in the hall, a thousand things he wants to say, a thousand things they have to say but she doesn’t care. Not anymore. (lie)

They’ve always been bad at talking anyways. 

She’d feel bad but they’ve both been running in opposite directions since the attack that killed Phil. 

When she wakes up in the morning she’ll find a picture slipped under her door. It’s a picture of a pretty girl with hair stained red by blood naturally but in the picture it almost looks as if it’s stained the red of fire, of warmth. The girl is a killer by nature but in the picture she looks almost innocent. The picture will say thank you written neatly on the top and she and Steve will never mention it to each other. 

Natasha will keep the picture in a box (in a safe house fifteen miles outside of Los Angeles that no one knows about) where she allows herself to have sentimental things, even if she believes sentiment is a risk (truth) 

It comes to absolutely no satisfaction to her that next time Steve is the one who is injured and she’s the one supporting the two of them and keeping the world from crumbling. 

That’s not what happens next. 

What happens next is this. 

There are more missions and more fights between all of them, because it’s never easy adjusting to your space being crowded in on, especially not people as screwed up as them. 

Natasha and Clint fight in their own way and then make up sooner or later (re: later) but nothing changes, nothing is better and she can’t escape that feeling of worse. 

Stagnant. It’s too still and she’s waiting for the pin to drop and the grenade to go off like she has all her life only this time she’s not sure of the casualties. 

The grenade goes off like she’s expected but the explosion is so slow happening that she’s blindsided, too blindsided to even realize how high the heat is. 

II. 

Natasha has nightmares.

It’s not surprising. Not with her line of work and not with her particular training and where it came from. Nor is it surprising that all of the avengers have nightmares at one point or another. It’s an occupational hazard. 

Natasha dreams of the red room. Or so she thinks. She can never remember the nightmares, can never remember more than flashes and pieces that keep her awake (she never screams. Not even when she remembers what’s supposed to be the worst) but that’s normal for her isn’t it? It’s not like she can remember much of anything else. 

For months, sometimes even as long as a year, her dreams will be blank; she never remembers her dreams and doubts that she even has them at all save for the nightmares. 

She dreams of white and then red will slip in, suddenly and silently as the Black Widow herself. She sleeps very little those months of red, the months she baths in it, but she never lets it go past that. Years of practice have strengthened her control over the mess of memories and triggers still trapped in her head. 

She dreams of red and is haunted by it. 

Steve has nightmares. 

It’s not surprising. Not with his past. Not when he’s lost everyone and everything he’s ever known and cared about. Not when he’s been thrown into a new world that doesn’t have a place for him. 

Steve dreams of the past. He remembers them too clearly, too sharply to be anything but a painful and jagged reminder. Sometimes he wakes up to a scream caught in his throat. 

He dreams of white. He dreams of the white of snow, the white of his failure. He dreams of the white feeling of cold sinking over him and trapping him, pulling him deeper. He dreams of the white of static on a radio as a connection is lost. 

He dreams of white and is haunted by it. 

It shows on his face. It shows in the hollows of his eyes and the shadows underneath, it shows in his stance and the way some days he can barely stay standing on his feet. It shows so much that even more than Natasha notices it. A questioning ripple goes through the air, a concerned glance shared by the rest of the team as he stumbles again. He stumbles and stumbles for days and the real unspoken question is if he’ll stumble in a fight. 

They’re hesitant to say anything, anything with more substance than an Are you okay cap? You should get some rest. 

It’s useless, polite, fumbling. Avoidance to spare his feelings and his pride at best and Natasha gets sick of it fast. She has no desire to mother anyone but even she can’t just sit around and do nothing. 

Besides, she hates waiting, she’s learned to accept it because of her job but the irritation she gets every time they have to wait is still lying underneath and this is no different. 

“You’re predictable.” She says conversationally, sitting down next to him. He’s on the roof again, facing a different way to get a different angle of the same skyline he’s been drawing for months. 

Steve doesn’t look surprised, or even startled. She’s almost disappointed. “ and you’re loud.” 

Oh, there is no way he just said that. “What?” 

He grins quick and teasing and then goes back to his sketchbook. “Heard you coming up the elevator, surprised you didn’t wake the whole tower.” 

“You’re lucky I’m letting you live. The last man who said something similar wasn’t.” 

He barks out a laugh and she smiles briefly at it and then remembers why she came up here. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” She doesn’t have to be any more specific than that, they both know what she’s talking about. “Or would talking to someone while lying down on a couch in a shield office be better?” 

Steve looks almost surprised. “Is talking about your problems allowed in Natasha Romanov’s club house?” 

She can do this. She can be comforting and supporting. For the sake of the team. Because he saved her life. Because she and Steve are friends. Pick whatever option most likely, most preferable. 

“Yes, I’ll make an exception just this once.”

“I’ll talk about it if you talk too. We can take turns.” She almost thinks he’s serious for a second and then realizes he’s joking. Of course he’s joking. 

Natasha stares at him blankly but that’s a joke too because Steve’s been reading her for months. “You’re just trying to see how far this ‘friendship’ thing extends, aren’t you?”

“More like I’m a fan of mutual suffering.” He smiles again and she reminds herself to relax. 

She sits down, legs crisscrossed and waits patiently, like a child for a story. 

Steve sighed and looked back out at the city. His city--no, it wasn’t his anymore. He’d blinked and by the time he opened his eyes he’d been thrown it had changed and didn’t have a place for him anymore. 

“I keep picturing him falling off the train, I keep picturing almost grabbing his hand you know?” He stopped throat closing up and not for the first time she wondered if he had talked about this with anyone besides her. 

“Our entire lives it was always me and him against the rest of the world. I was a smart mouthed kid and he saved me more times than I can recall, not just from bullies. I was always sick and he was always taking an extra shift just so we could get more medicine or more food.”

He looked away from the city, and closed his eyes painfully tight. Natasha did nothing but what. “Our entire lives he was always saving me and by the time I could save him, by the time I was strong enough to back up all my smart mouth words and I couldn’t.” 

There was nothing she could say to fix it. There were no fast words or cures for what had happened to Steve and to Bucky. Whatever she said would just be shallow in comparison to his feelings. 

“You’ve been dreaming about him more, haven’t you?” she prompted quietly because his regret about Bucky Barnes wasn’t unknown to her. Not since that night in the hospital, possibly not even before that because Steve had always walked with shadows in his eyes. 

He nodded, and then cleared his throat. “The day--the anniversary of….” He couldn’t even say it. “It’s on the fifteenth.” 

There’s nothing to say then. As far as she and Steve are aware of Bucky has no grave, no place to mourn to. An idea grows then and she files it away for consideration later. 

“We’d been together two years by the time of the attack, you know as much or at least suspected so.” She ignores his stunned look but relishes in it a bit because lately it’s felt like she’s been losing her touch. “It didn’t end because of the attack not the way you’re thinking.”

He assumes it was because she lost trust in Clint or he didn’t trust himself around her. It wasn’t like that. It never had been. Even now she trusted Clint with her life. There was very little that would change that. 

“It ended because Phil died.” She said in a softer voice. 

“Nat--” He’s never called her Nat before but going into this…friendship she knew that Steve was sentimental, and if she’s honest with herself he’s become more Steve than Cap anyways. 

Natasha shook her head slightly, “Barton and I were never good with talking. That was always Coulson’s area. Actions were more effective in our line of work and that transferred over.”

“And then Couls---Phil died.” Steve finished just as quietly and she nodded. 

“He died and Barton blamed himself. He always blames himself even if it’s just a stranger killed in the crossfire. I didn’t blame him. I’d be a fool to blame him for it and he knows that.”

“I don’t understand why then.”

“We both had our reasons for why it ended and we both think they’re logical even though we’re probably wrong.” She was being vague, not on purpose but out of habit, regardless this is the most she’d tell anyone about the matter besides Clint. If he asked she’d tell him all of the reasons in a second.

He’d never asked. 

To be fair, she’d never asked him either. 

When it came down to it there was only one reason that mattered anyway. “In my personal experience, relationships rarely survive tragedy, much less death.” She said shortly and that was it. That was all she had to say. 

Steve processed it all and then looked at her. “I’m sorry.” he said sincerely. 

If it had been anyone else she might have been inclined to hurt them, stab them at the very least with one of the knives hidden in her boots. As it was this was Steve, and for some reason her mind had placed Steve in the very limited and very small category of ‘different.’ 

She was sure she was going to regret it. “I’m sorry for your loss as well.” 

He smiled at her and the air wasn’t awkward but peaceful, normal. “Thanks.” 

“What are you drawing this time?” Natasha asked, curiosity real as she leaned in for a better look. 

He looked almost embarrassed but let her see it without a word. It wasn’t just her this time but the entire team, all of them captured in charcoal. What caught her attention wasn’t the likeness of them all, but how much time Steve had obviously put into it. This wasn’t some sketch he’d done on the fly because of boredom. 

“It’s good, very good.” she said struggling to think of something more meaningful to say. 

Steve laughed, embarrassment fading away slowly. “You don’t like art much do you?” 

She shrugged. “I never had the time to appreciate much of pretty pictures, by the time I could I found I didn’t have the desire to.” Natasha looked at him, face serious. “”It’s obvious you’re talented. I’m not trying to spare your feelings.”

He smiled again, “I didn’t think you were.”

He was the one who left first this time, saying goodnight and heading downstairs with a small wave. She was sure he would still have nightmares--one little talk wouldn’t fix that-- but hopefully the idea of talking about it would set in his mind. As much as she had talked with him out of friendship, a part of her had also done so because of the liability risk he was presenting. (truth)

Natasha pulled her jacket tighter around her and laid down, enjoying the feel of the cool cement against her back. It was getting colder soon and she hoped that Steve would have the sense to take his insomnia back inside. 

Doubtful. 

She doesn’t regret telling Steve. If she thought she would then she wouldn’t have told him in the first place. What she regrets is the liability he’s becoming to her. She’d sworn to leave sentiment behind after Phil died. The more people she became close to the more weaknesses she had and the more of a weakness she became of them. In a team of super heroes, she was already at a disadvantage for being less, even if she was more than normal. 

She closed her eyes and let her mind empty as much as she could let it. She wouldn’t solve any mysteries about liabilities tonight. 

Even as she let herself relax, alone and safe on the tower’s roof she was continuously aware of her surroundings and the knife in her boot. 

The weeks leading up to the fifteenth are solemn ones. The weather turns colder and activity around the tower is sluggish as they get less in less calls in. Tony grumbles about going on a vacation and the rest of them are content to merely stay inside on colder days. 

Steve has nightmares nearly daily and even talking with Natasha about them don’t help, instead it becomes worse, more vivid in his head and he stops coming up to the roof. He stops sleeping all together by the end of it. 

He even snaps at Thor once and he looks regretful when he realizes what he’s done but he doesn’t say anything, just storms out of the room. 

Clint catches Natasha when she’s in the gym. Just because they’re have less missions lately doesn’t mean she’s letting her training go to lack. Clint knows better to interrupt and instead waits patiently for her to finish. 

She’s prepared for whatever he has to say. They’ve slowly been talking more though it’s still difficult, still awkward and unfamiliar territory. 

“You need to do something about Cap.”

Natasha sets her bottle of water down. At least he was straight to the point, though she expected no less from her partner. “I need to do something about Cap?” she said pointedly. 

Clint sat down on the floor, looking around the tower’s gym curiously. “You can fool the rest of the team but I know you have a soft spot for the stars and stripes.”

She frowns, “What do you want me to do exactly?”

“I don’t know, fix him!” He said exasperatedly. “Did you see the look on Thor’s face when he yelled at him? I didn’t know six foot and above men could look that devastated. I didn’t need to know that information, Tasha.”

“Your flare for the dramatics is always appreciated Barton.” She said dryly and he only grinned in response. 

“I have a plan if that helps relieve your worries.” She said a moment later when Clint made no move to leave or say anything useful. 

Clint laid down, letting himself fall against the floor and she barely contained rolling her eyes as she started to work out again, quickly getting tired of being so still. “Is it a good plan?”

“My plans are always good plans.” She started another scenario against the sparring dummy. This time she would have to remember to contain herself so Tony wouldn’t complain about another one of his precious toys being broken. 

“Whatever you say.” Clint closed his eyes and she paused, “Are you patronizing me Barton?”

“No ma’am.” For the moment she was willing to disregard how normal this almost felt. 

On the fifteenth Natasha got up early that morning. In fact she was the second one up. The first was Steve who had never gone to bed at all, by that point he’d spent the last three days awake and as it was only the super serum kept him functional. 

For the very first time in a long time she leaves most of her weapons in her room, though her (well founded) paranoia keeps her from putting away two knives, and a small gun. She dresses nicely and when she thinks she’s ready she heads down to Steve’s room. 

She only has to knock once and he answers: there aren’t bags but mountains underneath his eyes and there’s a pale gray tint to his skin. He looks terrible and she’d say as much if she thought he’d understand it. In his current sleep deprived state she’s not sure he’ll understand much. 

“Get dressed warmly, we’ll be outside for an extended period of time.” 

His sleepy, red-rimmed eyes blink at her in surprise and then he nods his head almost sluggishly before closing the door again. Within five minutes he’s dressed and he follows her outside without a word. 

A sleek black car is waiting outside and he stops confused, as she gets in the driver’s seat. “We don’t have time for this Steve.” She says almost gently (but not gently because she’s the Black Widow and she doesn’t do gentle) and he nods again. 

Natasha starts the car and pulls away from the tower without a sound. “Go to sleep, it’ll be a while.” 

“I don’t know if--”Steve’s face twists, anguish showing. Natasha prays (no, not prays but something close to it) that what she’s doing won’t make him worse. Oh god, she’ll break Steve Rogers. Fury will have her head. Coulson will rise from the grave just to slay her. 

“Steve.” She’s playing on his weakness--not weakness exactly, but niceness to women. He’s a women and children first kind of guy. “Please? For me.” She’s not proud of it but it does the trick and Steve grudgingly rests his head and closes his eyes, within minutes he’s fast asleep. 

The trip isn’t actually that long but she purposely takes the slower way, all the more sleep Steve can get the better. Finally when she thinks she’s wasted enough time she stops the car and then waits for a minute before waking Steve up. 

He’s awake in an instant and looks like he hasn’t slept at all. Well, what did she think a little over an hour would do? “We’re here.” she says shortly and waits,

She doesn’t have to wait long at all. 

“You brought me to a museum?” Steve says confused and she nods. 

“You brought me to the Met?” 

“Yes.” 

“Why?”

Natasha sighed. “I know you’ve never been here before, I’ve never been here before either. I thought it’d be good for you, you’re always complaining about how I don’t appreciate art.”

Steve blinked and then shook his head, “But why today?” 

She paused for a minute clearly uncomfortable. 

“Why not today? Just because it’s the anniversary doesn’t make his loss more real. You remember that loss every day Cap, is one day such a difference? You deserve a day of mourning yes but you also deserve a day to remember that there are good things to.” 

(maybe she’s not speaking just about Steve’s losses)

“Were you being sentimental?” Steve said because that was the only thing he could think of saying. He was touched by what Nat had done. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her so nice to anyone. He knew she had feelings but he’d never seen them so clearly before. 

It was kind of amazing. 

Natasha looked vaguely horrified by the prospect. “I was not.”

He grinned at her. “You were definitely being sentimental.”

“Stop saying that.” She said bickering with him as they headed into the museum. “If you keep saying that someone will hear you. Worse they’ll think it’s true.”

Steve laughed loud and deep and more than one person glanced over at them in evident concern. He laughed and he laughed. He never thought he’d laugh on a day like today, especially today. But here he was. “Even if I don’t say it we both know it’s true. You were being sentimental.”

Natasha shuddered. “If you don’t stop I’m not going to take you to see the museum, I will head straight back to the tower and tell Thor that you want to go on another grand adventure to see the ‘great sights of our fair city’. I will do it and I won’t feel bad about it.”

Slowly Steve stopped laughing though it took a few minutes and Natasha fidgeted uncomfortably, body still shuddering in horror at the word sentimental. Finally Steve stopped and all that remained was a small smile. 

“Are you done?” She practically hissed out. “Because we have a lot of ground to cover.”

“Lead the way.” Steve said and the only reason he let Natasha lead the way even though neither of them knew where they were going, was so she wouldn’t see him silently laughing every now and then. 

They didn’t see the entire museum, even for their ‘superior’ skills it was impossible. But they saw as much as they could with Natasha dragging him around the place and stopping only if Steve looked actually interested in the art. Most of it was boring to her but this hadn’t been about her, besides some of it was actually intriguing. 

“I can’t believe you almost got us thrown out of the met.” Steve said laughing. 

Natasha rolled her eyes. “At least I didn’t get two people injured.”

“Hey! They only had minor injuries and they both accepted my apology.” Steve pointed out. 

She barked out a laugh. “Steve you’re Captain America, I don’t think there’s any sentient being alive that wouldn’t take an apology from you.”

This time Steve rolled his eyes. “So are you telling me what’s next?”

“What makes you think there’s anything more?”

“Come on, you do sentiment you go all out.” Steve smiled brightly. “I can read it on your face. There’s definitely more.”

She sighed, “Alright there is more. This is different though. I need you to keep an open mind about this.”

“We just spent the entire day causing trouble at one of the best museums in the world in which we nearly had security called on us and injured two people I think I can keep an open mind.”

“We’ll see.” 

The ride there was mostly silent, the radio wasn’t even on. Normally silence was fine but right now it felt like it was suffocating her and Natasha’s grip tightened around the steering wheel the closer they got. 

“Why are we going into Brooklyn?” Steve said softly and Natasha only shook her head, “Just wait till we get there and I can explain.”

“Get where?” 

Finally she stopped the car and waited for Steve to speak first. Anything she could say at this point would only make things worse. 

She didn’t have to wait very long, “You brought me to my old apartment building?” He said slowly, confused, cocking his head slightly and staring at her like he wasn’t sure what she was made of. 

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Natasha looked out the window and tried to imagine growing up here. She tried to imagine Steve living here but couldn’t. This part of town had slowly become more run down, she doubted it was anything like what it had been when he lived here… and yet Steve was staring up at it like it was a miracle. 

“Sentiment remember? I said you deserved a day of mourning along with remembering the good things. You had no place to remember, no grave or body so I thought this might work.” 

Steve’s expression turned soft, awe and thankfulness coloring it and she shook her head. “Don’t you dare start on that damn sentiment thing again because I swear I’ll--” 

She was cut off because it was hard to continue when you had a super soldier hugging you to his chest and saying thank you like he was five and you’d just given him Christmas (She only could make that comparison because Clint had forced them to watch about a billion--actually seventeen-- Christmas movies when Coulson had been sick once)

Natasha tensed up, mostly on instinct and then slowly relaxed. She even might have hugged him back a bit. “Stop saying thank you Steve, it’s just a building.” She said and he must have understood her even though it was muffled because he pulled back slightly to look her in the eyes. 

“No, it’s not and you know that.” Steve let go of her after that, a wide smile on his face and eyes soft. Natasha shook her head, “Just go inside the building before I hit you.”

He frowned. “You’re not coming in?”

“I didn’t know him. I didn’t care about him.” She said bluntly. “You do. Besides you need to do this on your own. I’ll be right here when you think you’re ready to leave.”

Steve nodded and slid out of the car, he looked back at her face hesitant and conflicted and then walked inside the old building. Natasha sighed and let her head fall back against the seat. 

“At least he didn’t cry.” She muttered to herself. Phil would have never forgave her if she had made his childhood hero cry. 

Natasha’s thoughts turned towards Phil as instinctive reaction and she frowned, starting up the car. Now wasn’t the time for her issues. 

She had an errand to run, with luck she’d be long back by the time Steve was done. 

She was in fact back by the time Steve stepped out of the building forty-seven minutes later. Natasha noticed the red-rimmed eyes first but didn’t comment on them because despite them Steve was smiling and he looked better than he had in days.

“Thank you.” Steve said again and she frowned, irritation flashing on her face. She hadn’t done this to be thanked. “I know you didn’t have to do any of this but thank you anyways.”

“Sentiment.” Natasha reminded and then reached for a bag in the backseat and pulled out a six pack of cheap beer. 

“Did you really buy me beer? You know I can’t get drunk right?” Steve said laughing and shaking his head as she handed him one. 

“It’s for the both of us. Besides you americans seem to have a tradition about getting drunk for the most flimsy of emotional reasons so I thought this counted.” Natasha said and then took a long sip of her own beer.

“I can’t believe I’m sitting in a car drinking beer with you outside my old building.” Steve said but took his own sip. “It’s too weird. I think I must be dreaming.”

Natasha smirked. “I’m afraid this reality.” 

“I needed this.” He said humor slowly fading and being replaced by some weird mix of sincerity and exhaustion of the emotional and physical kind. “You’re a great friend Nat.” 

She sighed, “Do I really have to remind you of the no feelings while drinking rule? If I have to I’ll tell Stark you broke it. He’ll be absolutely horrified. There will probably be a powerpoint about it.” 

Steve rolled his eyes. “I think that’s unnecessary but I get it: no emotions while drinking.” 

They finished their beer and headed back to the tower with Steve arguing that he should drive because alcohol could actually make her drunk but Natasha replied that she was fully sober and did he want her to prove that to him? Because she could do that. Also she said, one can of beer wasn’t as bad as three days without sleep and the hour long nap in the car earlier didn’t count as sleep. 

Finally Steve conceded but he refused to talk to her the rest of the ride home, Natasha just laughed. 

III. 

Natasha and Clint get called in for the briefing first. It happens sometimes, with missions that are more shield oriented than all or nothing fight of the safety of the world deal that the avengers a quickly becoming used to. After all they’re still shield agents if it’s harder to do espionage these days. 

“What do either of you know about the Winter Soldier?” Fury asks and Natasha can feel herself freeze. 

“The Winter Soldier? He’s a myth, greatest assassin the world right?” Clint says casually and Natasha is still processing the name because she hasn’t heard that name in years. 

(six years to be exact. Not since she first joined Shield and had to go through her own form of ‘cognitive recalibration’. She couldn’t give them any concrete info about the Winter Soldier and Fury had dropped it even though she could still see the suspicion in his eyes) 

“He’s not a myth, he’s a ghost.” She corrects, wondering if her throat sounded as sore as she felt it did. “He slips throughout the years like a ghost. He kills his target and then disappears until it’s time for the next one.” 

“Tasha?” Clint questions, not even caring about Fury. She looks pale, shaken, if you could actually apply the word to her. He’d never seen her like this in public. With him and Phil yes, but not at work. 

“He’s red-room trained.” She said and that was all she needed to say. 

Natasha looks up at Fury. “Why are you telling us this without the rest of the team? To catch him you’ll need all of the Avengers to even stand a chance.”

Fury pauses, “As a personal courtesy I felt you might benefit from knowing this before the meeting on Tuesday.” 

Her eyes narrows. “I’ve never asked you for any kind of courtesy.”

Fury set the file down on the table in front of them and left, barely stopping to say, “I never said it was for you.” 

“I’m not going to ask you if you want to talk about it because that’s just a waste of time, right?” Clint says and Natasha stares at him until he nods. “Right then, do you want to go down to the gym and we can spar until one of us almost breaks a bone?”

She smirks at him but it’s troubled. “You know me so well.”

Despite spending the next two hours sparring with Clint to the point that she almost had a dislocated shoulder and he in turn an almost broken ankle, she’s still angry by the time they head back to the tower. There’s sparks of adrenaline and heat rushing up and down her body and more than anything she wishes they’d get called on a mission because she wants to hit something and not be held back by restraints of safety and care. 

Wisely the rest of the team stays away from her, no one’s that incline to leap straight into the line of fire, except for Clint who’s not deterred by the worst of her glares that could and had killed lesser men. 

Of course Clint doesn’t shy away from the fire, he jumps straight in it and spends the rest of the day sitting on her couch and watching bad reality tv as Natasha paces the length of the floor, the Winter Soldier’s file held tightly in her hand. 

“So what is it?” Clint says pausing an episode of desperate shore or whatever piece of trash it is. 

She stops irritated more easily than usual because this is what happens when the past confronts her. All of her defenses drop like a fucking rookie agent and she hates it. “You’re going to have to be more specific Barton because I haven’t developed mind reading as a power yet.” 

“The file, something’s off right?” He says and she stops, staring at him. “So what is it?”

“I don’t know.” Natasha sits down next to him on the couch and not so much as sets but throws the file onto the coffee table. 

Clint hums, reaching out and running a hand through her hair and her walls are already dangerously cracking and they shouldn’t be doing this but her head hurts and she can’t figure this out so Natasha lets him run a hand through her hair and pretend things are still okay because things can’t get much more difficult right now than they already are. 

“You’ll figure it out.” Clint says because he doesn’t have doubt in his team. When he picks you, you’re stuck with him. It’s not like she’s forgotten that but lately it feels as if she’s been ignoring it. 

“I know.”

Phil would have made her talk about it, asked her why she had never told them. Because without Coulson, they would have never talked about the serious things at all--without him they would have crashed and burned a long time ago. 

“You want to watch something else?” Natasha looks up at him, trained-assassin, killer of men and monsters, with two bruises on his face that she gave him a few hours ago, and laughs. 

“No, this is fine.” I know you like this show she wants to say. 

For the rest of the night they watch bad reality tv: Clint’s entranced by it, getting far too involved and Natasha makes dry comments that have him glaring at her in protest. The Winter Soldier file remains unopened on the coffee table. 

They don’t sleep together. 

They could. She could lean up and press their lips together, she could run a hand down his arm and it would be that easy, they could walk down the hall to her bedroom. It’d be good. She knows from experience that it would be good. 

But they don’t because it would mean something and neither of them are ready for something that means something, not when they both have invisible scars from the battle of Manhattan. Not when they’re both carrying Phil’s ghost with them wherever they go. 

It’s never that easy.

Instead Clint says goodnight and Natasha opens her eyes and realizes the tv is turned off and that she’s been asleep for a while. Natasha walks him to the door and then falls into bed and nothing has changed. 

Her dreams should be bathed in red that night, it would make sense if they were but all she sees is the cold press of white. 

When Natasha wakes up she finally understands what was wrong. 

She doesn’t wait, calmly walking down the hallway to his room, still in her pajamas. She knocks once, impatient but still maintaining a façade of calm and control. Steve opened the door and greeted her by yawning, half his hair sticking up. 

“I apologize for waking you up so early, can I come in?” she says shortly, resisting the urge to run a hand through and straighten her own bed tangled hair. She rarely lets her appearance reflect anything but well dressed and the habit to correct it remains.

He looked almost startled, some of the sleepiness fading away from his face. “Umm, sure, come in.”

Natasha wanted to be sympathetic, she wanted to feel some shred of empathy but she couldn’t. not now. “You keep all of your old sketchbooks, don’t you?”

“Yeah? You know I do, you’ve seen them.” Steve says and he’s fully awake by now watching her with confused eyes. 

She could do this. She’d never spared someone’s feelings before and she wouldn’t start now. “I need to see one of them specifically, the red one.” 

He was still staring at her like he couldn’t believe she was actually in his apartment at three in the morning and she motioned at him to move and he finally left and she sat in the middle of his room and hoped she wasn’t going to break him. 

“Is there something you want specifically in here?” He says and she just shakes her head, grabbing the sketchbook roughly but gentling as she goes through the pages. 

She searches and searches and finally finds the one she’s looking for and just stops, staring down at it with disbelieving eyes because maybe she hadn’t wanted to believe it at all. 

Steve crouches down so he’s next to her, he doesn’t put a hand on her shoulder but she can tell he wants to. “Tell me what’s wrong.” He says in his ‘Cap’ voice and she almost rolls her eyes because really.

Natasha looked up at him with a fierce look in her eyes. “Who is this man?” she says and holds out the sketchbook so he can see, fingers still wrapped tightly around the binding. 

Right after he’d woken up, Steve had drawn hundreds of pictures of Bucky and Peggy and the Howling Commandos. Pictures of Brooklyn and the places they’d been. He’d drawn them all because he was afraid of forgetting. Because he didn’t have any actual pictures of them. 

The one Natasha was holding was one of the first few that he’d done. It was of Bucky in his uniform. In the picture he was half hidden away, holding a sniper rifle and taking aim at something out of the perspective. 

He frowns, “You know that’s Bucky. You’ve seen this picture before.” He’d shown Natasha all of his old pictures after the anniversary, after what she had done for him there wasn’t much he’d keep hidden from her. 

She nods and then flips to a different sketch of Bucky, this time a close up of his face. “And you’d say this is the same man? James Buchanan Barnes?” 

She has to be sure, she can’t break this man, can’t break her friend without being completely sure (if her best source of evidence is the scramble of memories in her head then she needs this.)

“Nat, what’s going on?” he says in a much more quieter voice and she sets the sketchbook down, eyes still straying to it every now and then. 

“I need to tell you a story and I need you to listen and not say a word until I’m finished.” Natasha says firmly and he nods once, not looking away from her face. She wishes he would. 

“I was trained from a very young age. I wasn’t the only one but I was the first and the best and that is why I’m still here.” She says very simple like she’s reciting words she’s memorized. It’s easier like this, to dissociate it away from herself and from him.

“My handlers grew eager for me to learn more, to prove myself more so they arranged for me to meet and be trained by someone special.”

“He was called the Winter Soldier. He was fast and powerful and his accuracy with any kind of weapon was unparallel.” She didn’t look at Steve, not once. “For three years I was trained by him on and off for a month at a time, at the most. Any longer and he’d be sent back.”

Steve still looked reassuring, still with that wary and confused look on his face as if she was making sense. “They would put him to sleep because if he stayed awake for too long they feared he’d remember and then he’d be of no use to them.” She said evenly. 

“To be honest by the time we met there wasn’t much human left about him. Some of the scientists were fond of him though, they thought they might have saw something deeper perhaps or maybe they were just fond of their pet. I don’t know.” 

“Why are you telling me all this?” He said softly because he’d never heard Natasha speak so specifically of her past with anyone. He’d never even heard her mention a reference to her past before. He didn’t even know if she had any siblings or not, any family at all. 

Natasha shook her head. “He didn’t remember his name or his life. He’d kill his best friend if they assigned him to and he wouldn’t feel a thing.” 

She looked up at him then and he tried to be surprised by the blank, dead look in her eyes but he didn’t have it in him to be. “This is the Winter Soldier, this is that man.” She said and slid the picture over to him. “This is the man who taught me better ways to kill and not be caught.”

Steve looked down at the picture of Bucky, eyes instantly straying to the quick almost lazy grin on his face the grin he’d seen all his life and even now it looked off because he had never been able to draw it to it’s full justice, and then back at Natasha. “Are you sure?” He said, something cracking in his voice and in his chest but for the life of him he couldn’t think of what it was. 

Of course she was sure. He knew she was sure. She wouldn’t have told him any of this if she wasn’t. He shook his head once, twice and Natasha looked alarmed but he didn’t care because it felt like he was having an asthma attack which was ridiculous because he didn’t get those anymore. 

“Steve?” she said, too close and he jerked away breathing too fast and too painfully and he heard a shuffling sound and then she was next to him again. “Steve? Breathe.”

It was only when he tried, that he realized he wasn’t having an asthma attack at all but crying too hard. 

Seemingly assured she moved closer and then placed a tense arm around him and he clung to her, uncaring, and she said something so quiet that he couldn’t or didn’t hear but he thought it sounded like sorry.

“I’m fine.” He said a minute later and he pulled away from her for both of their sakes. “I don’t even know why I’m crying.” he said voice hoarse and dry and he cleared. 

“Because you’re human and he meant something to you.” she said but her eyes were still blank, she still looked tense enough to break. 

Steve rubs a hand over his face, and leans back letting his head fall against the end of his bed. “So what do we do now?” He says and he’s only asking and not still crying because he’s probably in shock because there is no way that Bucky can be alive, not after all these years, not looking the way he did. Natasha wouldn’t lie to him about this though. She wouldn’t watch him break apart like that for fun (he doesn’t know that for sure but he has to trust that she wouldn’t.)

“Nothing.” She said and then when she saw the anger in his eyes added, “For now. On Tuesday Fury will call us all in for a meeting and we’ll officially be tasked with the capture or elimination of the Winter Soldier and we take it from there.”  
Elimination. He hadn’t even thought about that, he hadn’t even had time to think about that and for the minute he didn’t. “What happens if we capture him?” 

Natasha shook her head again. “No. I’m not discussing any more of this with you tonight.”

“Natasha please this is Bucky, you know how much he means to me. I need to know.”

“No, it’s not.” She said bluntly. “This is the Winter Soldier. He’s not Bucky anymore. He’s a machine. A weapon. You have to remember that or we won’t even have the possibility to capture him, do you understand?”

Steve stared at her evenly, unmoving, and she sighed, “If we capture him and if there’s hope then he’ll be reconditioned.”

“What does that mean?” Steve said even though he had a feeling, a cold pit of anxiety building up in his stomach. 

Natasha stood up and Steve did too even though his legs felt like they wouldn’t support him. “I’m not discussing more of this with you tonight. I’m done.” She said and walked out of the apartment and Steve doesn’t say goodbye as she leaves. 

She should feel bad. She should feel horrible because she told Steve what he needed to hear, what he had to hear and it about destroyed him and she ran away. For all her blundering attempts at friendship she’s still no good at it. A few lousy trips to museums and nights on the roof won’t change that. 

But to feel any remorse or guilt would admit to feeling something and right now she just wants to feel nothing at all. 

She stops and realizes that she’s not standing in front of the door to her room but Clint’s. Natasha says, does nothing for a moment. She just stares at the door---she could go in there, she wants to go in there, he wouldn’t mind she knows he wouldn’t and yet--- Natasha looks at the door and then heads down for the gym, wide-awake with adrenaline and regret and frustration stinging her system.

She always knew sentiment was a risk.

**Author's Note:**

> So basically I wrote this story about two-three months ago, on no sleep and a two week stretch of feeling terrible and depressed. That being said it's probably the fastest I've ever written a story and it was fine until the ending. The ending of this story to put it plainly is a goddamn bitch. I spent hours writing and rewriting because nothing worked. Finally I got as close as I could to getting a semi-decent ending and said I was done. Theoretically this is supposed to have a sequel where they actually do find the wintersoldier and how that affects Steve and Nat and it's probably from Clint's POV so you also have more him and mentions of his and Nat and Phil's previous relationship and his side of the whole thing. That's been done however, about a billion times and far better than anything I could write. (Okay maybe just the winter soldier part's been done but still, much better than mine)
> 
> Originally this was supposed to be solely about Steve finding out about the winter soldier, but then I got bored of that and thougth, well what about the time leading up to finding the winter soldier? Because you know Steve's a wreck and he's trying but failing at living. So I wanted to see that and then I thought, well why not throw in another character and make this a character study. I think it was going to be Clint (and there was so much more Clint in this fic to start with) and then I decided Natasha was more interesting and had her own losses to deal with and she had her own connection to the winter soldier and and there was so many parallels I could find between her and Steve that my mind just kind of fixated on this idea and that started this whole shindig. 
> 
> Umm, this is a long tag and I'm tired, so I'm just going to say thanks for reading and I hope I didn't bore you too much.


End file.
